SHORT REPORT Defecography in symptomatic older women living at home

Background: complaints of defecation disorders in older patients living at home is an emerging problem. Little is known about radiological examination of this population. Objective: this study aimed to analyse the yield of defecography in women older than 75 years, living at home and complaining of defecation disorders. Design and settings: prospective study of patients referred to a radiology department in a tertiary-care medical centre in Rouen, France. Subjects and methods: 52 women (mean age: 78, range: 75–93) complaining of constipation, faecal incontinence or pelvic pain underwent defecography. Defecography was performed after intake of a barium meal and vaginal opacification. Radiographs were analysed accordingly with the established criteria. Results: defecography showed perineal descent in 27 patients, rectocele in 29, intussusception in 33 and enterocele in 14. A combination of abnormalities was found in 40 women. Only 3 studies were normal. There was no significant association between symptoms and pelvic disorders revealed by defecography. Conclusions: defecography in symptomatic women aged 75 years and over did not raise any technical difficulty. It revealed a 77 % rate of abnormalities, but there was no relationship between the symptoms and the detected abnormalities.